Thank you all for the recent correspondence and great newsletter.  They brought back great memories of my time at St George's of which I have many.  So here's a top ten list I thought you might enjoy, ranging from the life-changing to the more frivolous:

 

1.  Forming the "Tiny Tots" - somewhere around Standard 2, we put together a relay team under the inspiring guidance of Jenny Mallett and completed a 10k run in less time than the bigger boys!

2.  Breaking ground on the school squash court around the same time I first earned my Western Province colours.

3.  Getting kicked off a "white only" beach with my best friends from school; we got in trouble for the difference in our skin colour and thus began my learning and my passion for a better world for all.

4.  Captaining our rugby team to a bruising 74-0 loss to Paarl Gymnasium A in an away- game schedule mix-up; many lessons learned and I've never been prouder of a team's attitude for never giving up.

5.  Beating a local rugby team around that same year and hearing their coach question the age of our star player; he complained bitterly that he was a Craven-week coach and if this kid was truly U13 then he would surely have been selected for the State all-star team; our coach sent him packing by suggesting that maybe it was not the boys age that was in question, but his race (Craven week was all white at the time and this boy was not);  to this day I wonder if that young man (the best natural athlete I have ever seen in any sport) would have ended up in the Green and Gold if he had been born 10 years later.

6.  Winning the senior cross country, but losing in the final 1500m on sports day to a boy in my own house

7.  Playing Tom Sawyer in the school play; countless hours of rehearsals and my first (and last) time on the big stage

8.  Taking a 4-day long camping trip with our entire matric class with my favourite teachers and my Dad; he was so cool, balancing being a role model to all the kids and a friend/hero to me

9.  Beaming at winning Sportsman of the Year in Prep School and seeing my name go up on the assembly board (but stewing that I missed Scholar of the Year and a chance at a double board); I believe the boy who bested me went on to earn straight A's in matric (while I wasn't even close due to some temporary insanity and lack of discipline).  He is now a Professor at UCT, so clearly the rightful intellectual champion.

10.  Sitting in front of Mr Cannon (as I still like to call him) in his massive awe-inspiring study, and being asked to be Head of House for Pinchin, and Deputy Head of School.

 

Truth is my fondest memories are of bringing all of these trials and tribulations together at the end-of-term award assemblies, enjoying the rousing speeches and imaginative stories, and then decompressing during the movies that followed on the big hall wall using the old projector with real film reels.

 

I loved my 14 years at the school (and no I didn't fail any classes . . . back then we had kindergarten too, so I really did spend my entire childhood under the protective gaze of St George’s). And while I enjoyed some success, not all my efforts were perfect, and occasionally when I slipped, great leaders like Paul were there to remind me of my great fortune, and the importance and responsibility I bore not to waste it.  For this I am truly forever grateful.

 

I left South Africa a few days after matriculating to join a boarding school in England for further education and some sports field fun.  From there I was fortunate enough to earn a spot on a scholarship program to the University of North Carolina in the USA.  There, I majored in economics and wrote my Political Science Honours thesis on the new SA constitution that was being drafted back home.  I went to work at JP Morgan, a global bank based in NY because they thought that as a South African I might know something about mining (huh?).  So I learned about mining and global resources and the business world, and then returned to study again at Harvard Business School.  I have spent the last 17 years with Goldman Sachs in their investment arm.  When I am not crunching numbers and serving our wonderful clients, I chair a charity that helps people break out of the cycle of poverty, and I try to be a good father and partner to my amazing wife and our two American kids (both kids have visited home more times than their years alive and love it almost as much as I do).  Maybe an exchange program is in our future?

 

I will close this rather self-indulgent reflection on such happy times, with a reminder to all our students that your world is what you make it.  Our globe can seem like a tough place, and sometimes I am sure it is, but keep in mind that you are fortunate to have landed where you are, so please make sure you take on the challenge and responsibility to use the opportunity to leave the world a little better than how you found it, starting with how you treat the person standing next to you.